South Korean Opposition Lawmaker Wants Crypto Gains Tax Scrapped, Not Delayed

South Korean opposition lawmaker Song Eon-seok has called for scrapping the country's planned tax on crypto gains outright, arguing the 22% levy would confuse and burden investors rather than simply arrive too early. His intervention lands in the middle of an active political fight over the tax, which is currently scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Song's position goes further than the government's own. Earlier this month, the government and the ruling party announced plans to postpone the crypto tax until 2029. If approved, that would mark the fourth delay of the measure since it was first legislated — a track record that has itself become part of the debate over whether the tax is workable at all.

Why does the lawmaker want the tax canceled?

Song Eon-seok's core argument is about inconsistent treatment between asset classes. Under the current framework, gains from domestic stocks would be exempt from the tax, while crypto gains would face the 22% rate. That asymmetry, he says, would confuse retail investors who hold both types of assets and effectively penalize one form of investment over another within the same tax system.

He also raised two practical enforcement problems that delay alone would not fix.

• Overseas transaction data. Authorities would struggle to identify and obtain records of crypto transactions executed on platforms outside South Korea's jurisdiction, leaving gaps in what the tax base actually captures.
• Purchase-price tracking. Determining the original acquisition cost of crypto holdings — the baseline needed to calculate a taxable gain — remains difficult, particularly for assets bought across multiple venues and over long periods.

Together, Song said, those issues would add confusion and burdens for investors rather than produce a clean, administrable tax.

What happens to the January 2027 start date?

The 22% tax is written into law with a Jan. 1, 2027 effective date. The government and ruling party's proposal would push that back two years to 2029, extending a cycle of deferrals that has already seen the measure postponed three times.

Song's proposal effectively splits the debate into two camps: those who want more time to fix the operational problems he identified, and those — like him — who believe the problems are structural and the tax should be removed from the books entirely.

The distinction matters for market structure. A delay keeps the tax as a future compliance obligation for Korean crypto investors and the exchanges serving them, preserving planning uncertainty around a 2029 horizon. Full repeal would eliminate the liability altogether and remove the incentive questions created by taxing crypto while exempting domestic stock gains.

For South Korea's large retail crypto base, the practical stakes are straightforward: whether gains realized after the effective date face a 22% levy, and whether reporting systems can actually reconstruct purchase prices and overseas activity by the time any deadline arrives.

The legislative fate of both the delay proposal and Song's call for repeal now sits with the National Assembly, which must act before the current Jan. 1, 2027 start date approaches if either path is to take effect.

By Daniel Okafor